Firm grows AUM by $210M with Nitrogen at the center of prospecting & client engagement

Background

Financial advisor Katyln Lawrence has been in the industry for more than 16 years. She currently works at a large national wealth advisory firm, and offers clients a variety of services, from retirement planning to tax planning to investment management and everything in between. Early in her career, Katlyn pursued niche clientele: pilots.

“I love finding and filling gaps for folks. I’ve done it with myself; I’m big into personal development and growth. With clients, everybody has financial gaps and missing structures that we can find and fill. It feels good to be the person to do that,” Katlyn said.

Discovering the Nitrogen solution

Before Nitrogen, Katlyn didn’t think that the traditional way of discussing risk was clear for clients. “The six question quizzes didn’t inspire confidence for clients and were kind of hands-off. Over the last 10 years, I’ve tried to have in-depth conversations with clients about risk as we build a plan together. Nitrogen made perfect sense with the direction I wanted to go,” Katlyn said.

Katlyn was one of the first at her firm to adopt the new technology of Nitrogen. Testing it from the beginning, Katlyn got to evolve her practice with Nitrogen at the center.

“I was in the middle of growing my practice, and Nitrogen was a seamless fit. I think people often try to overcomplicate things in this business. Nitrogen’s interface is exceptionally clean, simple, easy to use and straightforward. It helps clients realize they need to work with an advisor, and its simplicity makes us more efficient,” said Katlyn.

Katlyn leverages the concept of the speed limit when discussing Risk Numbers®. Katlyn believes this translates well to clients, and they immediately connect their risk number and their portfolio.

“Nitrogen really helps clients conceptualize where their portfolio is invested, and we’re able to talk candidly about risk,” Katlyn said.

One of the most significant benefits Katlyn has seen in her client meetings is Nitrogen’s sliding scale which shows the potential upsides and downsides of a portfolio. “Either on Zoom or in person, I’ll cover up the upside of the scale, so all the client sees is what the potential downside is, or vice versa. It clearly shows clients how their portfolio might play out,” Katlyn said.

The firm’s process with Nitrogen

Nitrogen is critical to Katlyn’s business:

”My team won’t have a meeting without it, and we bring on approximately three clients per month—it is essential to our business. Frankly, if we don’t have the data to build out their portfolio in Nitrogen, we tell clients that we’re going to put a pause on meeting until we can,” said Katlyn.

Katlyn uses Nitrogen across all her current and prospective clients. Nitrogen is key to building initial trust and helping clients understand how their risk number and assets need to match up. “We bring Nitrogen into 100% of meetings with prospective clients. With the user interface being so interactive, Nitrogen helps us on the front end to build certainty that we’re the right firm and that I’m ultimately the right advisor for them,” said Katlyn.

“Nitrogen fits into our philosophy and the story we want to invite the client into about what’s important to them and their goals,” Katlyn said.

With a typical prospect, Katlyn will share a presentation, spending 5 to 10 minutes going through the inputs that the client gave to make sure everything is accurate. After that, the presentation flows. There are three more screens for the rest of the conversation. The first is for the eMoney decision center, and the other two are for Nitrogen. Katlyn provides clients with an overview of Nitrogen and then will sometimes dive into the proposed portfolio, too.

“Having this easily replicable presentation and methodology has created a very consistent feel internally and externally. I’m big on the little things, and having an easy-to-follow, professional presentation is important because the clients recognize how everything works together. They understand that we have our stuff buttoned up. If it doesn’t look like it’s working together, they have less confidence in our capabilities,” said Katlyn.

Nitrogen’s seamless technology integration

eMoney is at the core of Katlyn’s financial planning tech stack, and Nitrogen is at the core of the investment proposal and compliance side of the business. Both software work together harmoniously and filters into Orion. Katlyn’s firm technology partners operate flawlessly together, making Nitrogen a helpful and easy tool for advisors in the firm to adopt.

Katlyn’s team will build out plans for clients in eMoney but not put all their holdings into eMoney. Even though many advisors do this, Katlyn’s process is different. She puts holdings directly into Nitrogen when working with prospective clients because eventually when they become clients, their holdings will all get synced together through Orion. This method allows Katlyn to keep the portfolios static, and all the integrations work together and coordinate to save Katlyn and her team time.

Plus, when Katlyn introduces Nitrogen to clients, she explains that she can show them accurate projections down to the penny.

“The most important thing for me is that Nitrogen is integrated with our technology. This allows us to have a consistent story that’s building certainty during prospecting. We tell clients what they can expect from a potential range of returns if their portfolio remains the same. And with Nitrogen, we get to show them where their portfolio could be,” said Katlyn.

Connecting with remote & in-person clients

Throughout the pandemic, Nitrogen has been an excellent solution for Katlyn to use with clients during virtual meetings.

“Whether meeting virtually or in our office, we walk through Nitrogen, allowing clients to see their current and proposed portfolio. We’ve had many clients experience an ‘a-ha’ moment and say ‘I get it now. I believe you,’” Katlyn said.

Katlyn’s team hosts virtual meetings with clients and also screen- records videos to answer client questions. In place of an hour-long meeting, Katlyn will use Nitrogen to create a screen recording to provide elevated customer service and stay efficient. No matter how Katlyn keeps in touch with clients, there’s one thing she especially appreciates that Nitrogen has enabled she to do.

“It might sound minor, but Nitrogen eliminates breaks in the middle of our conversations with clients. We no longer have to go back and shift to something, or take out paper, look through charts, or print out 32 pages,” said Katlyn.

Maximizing the Nitrogen ROI

Katlyn has seen firsthand how Nitrogen helps her firm and clients navigate risk fearlessly. Since Katlyn’s team started using Nitrogen, they’ve grown from $30 million to approximately $240

“If the name of the game is to get new clients and keep them for the long term, then you need a client to have complete trust in you as their advisor. With Nitrogen, you have a great tool to help gain clients’ trust, and everyone comes out ahead,” Katlyn said.

By building things out for prospects on the front end in preparation for prospective meetings, Katlyn has found it’s simple to click “go” right when that prospective client wants to switch over. There’s a back-end efficiency with Nitrogen that makes onboarding clients an easy transition.

“If we’re focused on what makes things better and easier for our clients, having a process that involves them from the beginning that they understand and is clear for them is always better than a process that doesn’t,” Katlyn said.

Katlyn’s team loves and uses Nitrogen’s sliding scale that shows portfolio outcomes in real time, another clientactivating feature. “We use that tool regularly, and the scale is a big confidence builder for people once they are already clients. They want to have total certainty on how their investments will perform, and I can have confidence that their portfolio will operate within a certain set of parameters. It’s a win-win,” Katlyn said.

Katlyn is at the forefront of the Fearless Investing Movement and is not afraid to take risks. With Nitrogen, she only sees the upside.

Nitrogen has positively impacted Katlyn’s practice in three ways:

1. Maxmimizing the Nitrogen ROI
2. Demystifying risk
3. Building client trust